February 16 -- Feast of Blessed Bernard Scammacca

Not Saint Bernard!  Blessed Bernard.

Bernard must indeed have been blessed long before he was beatified by the Church.  He had  walked on the wild side as a young man, but took a sword in the leg while dueling, which gave him time to think.  The thoughts he was thinking turned to God, so Bernard himself turned to the Dominicans.  

Okay, that's the guy!

I figure it was a good fit, as he developed a reputation for serious adherence to the Rule.  That reputation extended well beyond the people who knew him.  Birds used to fly down and sing to him when he walked in the monastery garden, but if he paused to pray, they would all hush up. 

He also had an Infant Jesus reading lamp and bookstand. According to the monastery porter, a bright light was shining from Bernard's cell.  When the porter peeked in, he saw a radiant child holding the book that Bernard was reading.  


And of course this is the sort of saint who keeps going long after death.  About fifteen years after he died, a prior received a vision of Bernard asking to be moved to a particular chapel.  During the move, a paralytic touched his relics and was cured.